Scalable Routing Mechanisms for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Nowadays an increasing number of portable devices with wireless communication capabilities start to play an important role in our daily lives. People rely on being connected to computer networks where they can access services that empower both their professional and personal life experience, inter-connecting computers, cell-phones, sensors and other common objects that start to offer these type of services. However, existing network infrastructures have not been designed for supporting such a large number of heterogeneous devices and seamless mobility is considered a great challenge. An existing alternative that departs from traditional network infrastructures focuses on the devices’ ability to inter-connect themselves, creating wireless multi-hop networks. In fact, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork (MANET) working group, has defined two different routing protocols that explore the capabilities of wireless multi-hop networks by creating an ad-hoc network. In particular, the working group has defined a proactive routing protocol for dense and less dynamic networks with high load of traffic, as well as a reactive routing protocol aiming at tackling sparser networks with higher mobility. However, many other routing protocols and approaches have been proposed in the literature and, bearing in mind the main guidelines from the IETF working group and the challenges posed by mobility and the increasing number of devices, a thorough analysis of important routing protocols for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks will be presented. This analysis will consider the study of works relevant to the development of scalable routing approaches, capable of providing a solution for the current dissemination of wireless-capable devices and need to interconnect them. A complexity comparison of these protocols will also be presented, as well as performance evaluation of the main existing solutions for large-scale MANETs.